May Garden Overview -2017 Tracking Year Data

Posted on May 30, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Hello Folks, I am going to do my best heading into 2017 to have a big old tracking year, I need to do this and I have the book, the paperwork and the plan..  I will make it happen..

So this is the first month of scales, daily writing of what is coming in.. O the fun.. (not) lol.. but if I can get into a daily habit, it will prove to be much easier.  I think that I will need to get my own little second book for this, its proving at times to take to much room in my current recording book.

May  Costs- 17 dollars

Output Costs: 17 dollars

An so it starts..  While I do have a soaping scale, I am going to round things into pounds or fractions of pounds just like I took everything into pints, regardless of the jar size itself..  so it can be a quarter of a pound, half a pound, a pound an so forth.  Yes, I know I am Canadian but I was raised with gallons and pounds, I am the crossover gen and it never stuck any more then it needed to.. give me feet, pounds and inches!

Started in April  and continued to be grown and or planted out in May – A ton of garden seedlings and flowers, I am so rounding this one out for the sake of my fingers and typing.. Needless to say.. I have planted out

  • -7 trays at 72 cells -504 seeds started
  • 3 trays with 24 cells -72 seeds started
  • 2 trays with 12 cells -24 seeds started
  • 5 elderberry cut starts branches
  • 5 High Bush cranberry Starts
  • 6 yellow raspberry cane starts

The real question is how? do I figure out returns on this and I have decided that until its planted in my garden or harvested and eaten.. its just sitting there and growing.. but not cost counted.

 

Outside, in May, we planted out rows of carrots, beets, turnips, winter turnips, radishes, beans, two blocks of corn, cabbage, potato’s, we will continue planting as time, weather and work allows. This week, we will get all cucumbers, squash and pumpkin plants and such planted out.. Sweet Potato’s will be done in the next week as well hopefully.. there are 75 plants in total that need to go out.

 

Harvested in May (all dried herbs and such will go with Mountain Rose Herb costs per their site)

18 pounds of Burdock root –  (really people) 5 dollars a pound for fresh eating and 15 per pound for cubed and dried.. Ok then..  -90 dollars (all leaves are going for fodder for sheep and pig)

30 pounds worth of Dandelion heads at 2.50 each (and I am low but they started out smaller and now are much bigger heads)  -75 (some of these are being used for fodder for the little pigs but I am bringing in a average of a pound a day this month)

20 bunches of green onions (this one is tricky, I have both green onions up and coming in but I also have a lot of just the greens of walking onions coming in, we had a price drop in stores and at the farmers market so I am reflecting that) 1.99 per bunch -40

70 oz of Dried Spring Nettles -157

5 bunches of radish’s -2.99 -15

6 pounds baby spinach – 18

24 pounds of rhubarb – 5 dollars a pound at the store (I have seen it as low as 4 at the market and 3.50 from a farm friend) but the average is still 4.99 per pound at the local stores.  -120

Mint – I am not sure how to count it, but 3 pounds of mint so far.. it was used fresh to make cold tea and hot tea and in cooking.. but going to put it at 3 per pound -9

I have harvested just shy of 4 pounds of rhubarb flower buds, but I have no idea how to price them? I think they would have to be considered either a speciality food.. so lets go 5? per pound -20

No sprouts this month, I have moved to yard greens only!

 

Started in March

  • Sweet and Hot Peppers
  • Tomato’s
  • Kale
  • Pots of Pea’s
  • Put a number of cane and soft fruit seeds into cold damp status
  • True Potato Seed
  • Potted up Sweet Potato Slips
  • Mixed early greens
  • Bloody Dock seeds
  • Cabbage
  • Broccoli
  • Started a full tub of self-rooting storage beets with tops started that will be transplanted and grown for bi-annual seed collecting for 2017
  • Sprouting potato that will potted up in the same way that will be used for very early summer small fresh eating spuds, rather then waste them at this point.

March imputes: Sprouts -2 trays per day.. organic mixed sprouts each tray is slightly bigger then the tray at the store at 3.99 each.. so that’s 8 dollars per day in sprouts

Total produced : $544

  • Jan $161. 40
  • Feb $248
  • March $248
  • April 245.50
  • May -554.00

May $544.00

Minus – 17

May total to the good –527

Garden Output to date : In the good $1,388.30

Posted in Garden, Garden harvest | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Canning Round up for May – 2017

Posted on May 30, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

2017  Please note for ease of tracking, I will be rounding everything up or down into pints.. example, if I do 7 quarts of something, it will be written as 14 pints, if I do 8 80z jars it will be written as 4 pints..  you get the idea.. It will make my life so much easier when I am the math each month for a round up this year..  I will try? to keep the page updated on this on the blog directly but will only share this post at the end of the month. It will be both a monthly round up and a running count for the year.

Lilac Jelly made from the Standard Lilac flowers with a mix of the darker flowers.

 

Total Pints to date for 2017- 154Pints

  • Canning Running List.
    19 pints of Turkey Veggie Barley Soup
    9 pint of rabbit meat
    4 pints of raspberry-Ginger Jam
    6 pints of blood orange marmalade
    3 pints of kumquat marmalade
    4 pints of lime marmalade
    4 pints of Lemon Crown Royal Jelly
    4 pints of Pink Grapefruit and Rose Petal Marmalade
    6 pints of Seville Orange Marmalade
    9 pints of Beet Pickles
    18 pints of Canned Pork
  • 5 pints of plain sweet bread and butter Sunchoke pickles
  • 1 pint of Sweet Bread and Butter Sunchoke and Pepper Pickles
  • 4 pints of Dill Sunchoke Pickles
  • 9 pints of ham bean soup
  • 9 pints of rabbit stew
  • 5 pints of Rabbit Meat
  • 18 pints of lamb stew meat
  • 18 pints of lamb stew made with veggies and barley
  • 4 pints of lilac jelly (8 half pints plus one 4 oz)

 

Feb Update
No canning done in Feb – However I used a total of 47 pints from the pantry thoughout the month of Feb. Out of homemade Canned Corn

March Update
March was a lean canning month (which just makes sense when you don’t buy much off the farm)
-9 pints of Pickled Beets
18 pints of ground pork

April Update

May Update

  • 5 pints of Rabbit Meat
  • 18 pints of lamb stew meat
  • 18 pints of lamb stew made with veggies and barley
  • 4 pints of lilac jelly (8 half pints plus one 4 oz)
Posted in Canning, dry pantry, food, Food in jars, Food Storage | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Eastern Painted Turtle

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Coming over the road and up our driveway was a big beautiful lady, she was heading for our pond,  and was pouting as our cats were very interested in her. I expect that she has plans to lay in our pond (we have had baby turtles in our pond on other years)

We picked her up and after a few pictures, we carried her with care to the pond, set her down by the water an watched her head in, I will enjoy seeing this beauty sunbathing on the log we have placed for her. I have hope that I might be able to watch carefully enough to see where she lays her eggs and be able to mark the area and create a safe spot around it and then track when her wee ones are hatched.

She was grumpy when we first picked her up.. lol

Starting to relax now, I love how fast they seem to figure out that you don’t mean them harm, so pretty, love the pattern and colors. Let her have a dip to rinse out the grass by her head and to relax even more.

This one big turtle, a full-grown female, I wonder how old she is.. I also wonder if she could be bright eye’s mother?

So you can see the size difference between a Baby (approx. six month old Eastern Painted turtle vs the mature adult in the photo’s above.

I love that my land is healthy enough to support a native turtle population

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Overload.. LOL

Posted on May 26, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Spring has come in full steam.. and I am finding that I fall behind, it happens every year and its something that I wish I knew how to make not happen.. Is there a single farmer that feels in control in the spring?

If they or you do.. want to share your secret? I have 60% of my must do planting done, I have 20 to 25% of the rest started and ready to be planted out, I have a huge garden area prepped and ready to be planted.

I also have a huge amount of produce that needs to be processed already, this past week, I have been in a push to get the years supply of wild violets with flowers in the mix done and I might have another week before the flowers are done and I will only have greens.

I am pushing hugely on the spring nettles and they are growing upwards of what seems like half a foot to a foot daily at times.. all good things in its own way.

The strawberry beds had their first go round and are not slowly being pushed in the new round of weeds up that I have not gotten to yet, and in the one bed, mint as invaded.. I have decided to let it grow for a bit, then I will cut it to the ground, harvest it and process and repeat, rather then worry about pulling up strawberry plants roots until after the strawberry harvest, which appears to be heading towards a grand one.

Got the asparagus bed done for the spring and am pleased with the results.. next year will be our first full harvest year, they are already up and turning into ferns. Grow my pretties, Grow!

The yard is so high at the moment that I am grazing the goats on it, when the time is right, we will cut it, dry it and roll it for hay, the pasture is slowly growing but this past week between a light re-seeding in some spots, the dragging, warmer temps and now a few good soaking slow steady rains, it should just explode into growth.

We have cut down a area of tree’s, some fire wood, some to burn, some into future fence posts, we removed Norway maples and popular and a few spruce as well, that area will be replanted into two rows of food producing hedge rows and it will also open up the annual smaller garden space between them all.

My side yard towards the brown shed has a huge pile of throw away, its a combo of many things, working and building removal parts, its also got the bagged pulled and sun cooked wild parsnips, and its got extra things that are being removed in regards to the upstairs bedrooms and such for the reno work that will be done up there over the next few months before my mom comes for her visit this fall.

Its driving me crazy, it has to go! I have called and booked a big bin to come so that I can load it all up and have it hauled away. There is a part of me that knows that I should wait till fall when we have all our projects done but I just can’t do it.. I can’t stand the idea of that pile just being in my eye site for another four months. Better to get that area cleaned up and all that out before the heat of the summer. If I need to, I will bring another smaller bin in the fall.

Farmer R came for the big water bin and its fixing today (as we have water this spring) and so that is one more big thing out of my yard.

Hatch #2 is on day 16 or 17 and I have candled and removed the 2 eggs that were dead and hope that the rest will keep on going, Hatch #1 had moved out of the house and into the big coop and are doing very well so far. They are loving their bug hunting in the big outdoor pen, the fresh bits of hay to peak at and I swear they all snack on the goat poo when given a chance.

Must get to the rhubarb! Must get the to… well you get the idea..  I have faithfully written the amounts down in my book at least till a few days ago, I wore the battery out of my digital scale and because life is like that.. I also need a new battery in my big scale as well.

I will pick them up on the weekend, I am heading to the city for a visit with a dear friend and then we are hitting the big supply place and I will be coming home with a year supply of sugar, flour and a few other things..

Have a great day and a grand weekend!

 

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

This and That Post

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Hello my dear readers, I had planned on posting the most awesome recipe of rabbit liver pate including some outstanding locally produced maple Syrup but we had a opps and the bag with the liver got frozen, so know I need to thaw it out and I will get that recipe made for very soon.

I did some rabbit butchering this week, my biggest female was 8 pounds, and I can see why she did not have kits.. way to fat inside but she has a lovely massive pelt on her that will be put to good use in the near future.

On to some sad news.. I had written about my outstandingly awesome Blue Purrpot last year and that he had gotten stepped on as a kitten by Caleb, it was touch an go on if he would live from being stepped on, It was amazing to all that he pulled though and it became a joke  that my “free farm cat” was most surely not free by the time I paid his medical bills, well he appeared to be fragile but healed and we had him altered at 9 months of age.  Sadly it would appear that the damage done when he was younger has come back as he matured and it was just to much in the end.

You were only with us Blue Cat aka Blueberry for a year.. but you were one of the greats my sweet happy purry loving boy..  Rest in Peace my sweetheart.  Thank you to Farmer Y for trusting us with him, and I am grateful that I will still get to visit with his littermates.

On a more positive note, we did our annual apple Blossom Photo Shoot for our little Dezbot and I have to say that I very much like this years photos.

We also had a surprise in the barn this past week, the one yearling we thought had missed, surprised us with a single small but active and healthy ram lamb.. can you believe it.. another ram lamb..

On the other hand, the weaned lambs are in their own mob now and are doing very well in their own pen and area, I am very pleased so far with how they are doing. The next two days are planned farm processing days for the freezer camp, and the weekend is booked from sun up to sun set and it will be so worth it!

Posted in At the kitchen table | Tagged | 5 Comments

Dragging the pastures- Spreading the paddies and leveling it out.

Posted on May 23, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

This is the issue.. you see when you have sheep or goats, they do little droppings, that just spread the manure love and after they dry and have a good rain, they just melt into the pastures..

Horse  an cow Paddies.. that is whole different matter, they land like a bomb and they are thick and piled up but good. My big boys leave big piles.. I know that some folks go out every single day and pick up their pastures and add them to the compost pile and to them I say.. good for you and to be truth, I have many times take the wheel Barrel and gone to the favorite standing places and I will do a pick up, and sometimes I will just wonder around the pasture cleaning it up..

But time gets away from you and other things need to be done and before you know it.. your pasture looks like this! Piles, old piles, and new ones.. and suddenly you are having a major issue, because each of those piles is point in fact, a) missing from the compost pile b) taking away approx. a foot of pasture that is not growing pasture

With spring, planting and so much more on the go, I called in help.. and I will admit it, I might just hire him once a month to come and drag the pasture, not just to spread the piles but to keep working on helping level the pasture out as well.

One of the good things about this was the hubby an I walked the pasture and did a full pasture pick up ahead of him going over it, so the pastures got a nice spring clean up and it got a drag over as well. As luck would have it, we are to have a couple days of rain coming, which will really help feed the soil from those older and newer piles that are spread thinly over the land itself. *

*I did some fecal testing before doing this to see if I needed or wanted to do some worming, as I am always aware of worm loads, the sheep needed worming, the goat and horse’s and cows did not.

I had truly hoped to turn the pasture and do a heavy re-seeding but this spring has not worked with me.. first to wet and now to far along and to hot.. so we will work to keep it dragged, we will work to add finished compost thinly covering it and I will do a late fall -winter seeding and second early snow seeding out and will see where it gets me.

Posted in homestead | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

Burdock Leaf Tea.

Posted on May 22, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Burdock root tea is very good for you, you want to harvest the first year roots in the mid July to end of July when they are around an inch to inch and half in size and about 12 to 16 inches long.  I will do a post on them when the timing is right

Today however we are going to talk about making fresh Burdock Leaf Tea for both pleasure drinking and for tonic use.  My measurements are simple. 1.5 oz of fresh chopped leaf per 2 cups of water, bring to a boil, take off heat and let steep for 10 min, strain, and serve with a touch of honey for sweeter if you want.  If you make a big batch, add to your jar and allow to cool a bit and into the fridge for storage.

As with all new plants, try a little and see if anything happens, wait 24 hours and then try again. ONLY once you are sure you can safely use this plant, can you drink up to three cups a day for ten days as a spring tonic before taking a rest break of a week and repeat if you would like.

There are more reports of things on the net then you can shake a stick at, and I am not going to quote them.. just google and you will find all kinds of things.. what I will say is this..  this is a medical plant and it should be treated as one.

Now comes the important part of this post.. picking leaves for your tea 🙂 On the left in this picture is a nice small from the very middle of the plant second year plant leaf, it’s twice the thickness of the first year leaf on the right..  please! remember to use only first year plant leaves for your teas. I made sure to pick a leaf from a one year plant at the same size an stage.. you can easily see the difference between them.

This was the whole first year plants leaves, I took the whole plant, I trimmed off the stems and then rolled and cut the leaves before measuring them out and adding the water to the pot, I like to make sure I use a steel pot when I am making my tea’s and for me fresh well water.

I find the taste pleasant, others report it to have bitter undertones but I don’t find it much so.. if an issue, mix in some mint or nettle to the pot to create a better flavour profile if you would like 🙂

 

Posted in Food Forest, Garden, Life moves on daily | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Breaking new soil in a new area of the farm

Posted on May 21, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

We had a area that we cleared and last year we planted it out into potato’s and added a lot of compost to it and when we dug the potato’s we double dug the whole bed, and I planned to plant all kinds of root veggies.

Well, this spring was I in for a surprise, I have not really looked at it much, at least till today when I headed out to clean it and then plant the seeds.. Wow.. the soil is poor..

I am used to my normal amazing river loam soil in my main garden  see aboveand my nursery garden and by the time the raised beds break down into the soil, its pretty good..

This soil, not so much.. in the whole time I cleaned it, not one worm.. almost no plants..  Boy does it have a good amount of sand and just enough clay in it to form a crust on the soil..

The darker lines are where we watered in the seeds, its so dry.. like a powder in there, now to be fair we have not had any real rain for coming on two weeks but the other area’s are holding their moisture still quite well.. this is clearly going to be very well draining.. I will have to see after I do a few things to it if I can get it to hold its moisture better.

 I cut up 3/4th a laundry basket worth of chopped comfrey as our first gift to the soil and the plants.. I will be doing a number of things over the next weeks and the summer, I will do the updates and we will see where this soil and garden is by fall and by next spring.

Think of it as a cut and drop but as you can see, I took snipers to the comfrey to get it fairly uniform in size and I don’t want them over the seed row, I want them on the sides of where the seeds are, they will quickly wilt out and rot down, both leaching in and I will also loosely turn them in.. Think of its a step one taken today..

This is the front area that is planted into a Double row of carrots and the chopped comfrey went in the middle between the two rows and then winter turnips and two rows of beets, the corn will get a different treatment as will the cabbage area behind the corn.  I have my work cut out for me to get this garden soil living again..

Posted in gardens | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

We love our toads- So we just had to rescue hundreds of tadpoles

Posted on May 21, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

The little pig wallow was drying out and fast.. and in the last bits were hundreds of wee tadpoles.

Needless to say.. we had to do something.. This is not the first time we have rescued and set up a area for them grow and become toads on the farm, so we knew what needed to be done..

We got a nice big tote (we will set up a metal water tank tomorrow but for right now, this works just fine and we moved some of the muck (which is why the water is augh, it needs to settle) and we used well water that was not to cold or to warm, if you did this in town, rain water is better, as it would not have chemicals etc.

Hubby put in a big old handful of hay, and I picked fresh green out of the eating yard..  right now they need algee and plant but soon enough I will toss a worm or two into the bin for extra protein for them, I will do my best to see if I can get photos as they grow legs and into wee toads.

Hungry babies, that’s for sure.. they will get feed twice a day and their water will be watched and topped up as required. They will get a log added and then a big stick that will go up the wall and over and down for when they are old enough. Right now they also have a mesh cover over the top to keep birds from snacking, (including our yard ducks)

I will need to get out my toad watering pans and start filling them up..  Never mind that its just the right thing to do.. these guys will be hard at work all season long in my gardens for me! My thriving frog and toad populations speaks to my farms ecosystem but sometimes you just need to give them a big of help.

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Fish Fry – Catfish with chips

Posted on May 17, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Today has been a run day and it will be a run evening, so when we had the chance to stop, catch a breath, take a break from the heat.. it was done with light and joy..

Our local river has gone down a fair amount and the fishing season has opened up for a number of things.. locally you can catch catfish year round.. but this was my first spring Catfish fry and it was awesome.

A egg-milk wash, a cornmeal dipping and into the fryer.. Homemade chips (showing my English roots, aka Fries) with a touch of seasoning salt..

Honestly how can you go wrong with fresh fish and while I know that some don’t like catfish, I have always liked it. There is a recommended limit on how many to eat per month in our local area. Do you like catfish?

Posted in Fish Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments